Carpenter, Von

ORAL HISTORY OF VON CARPENTER
Interviewed and Filmed by Keith McDaniel
With Terry Carpenter
January 29, 2010
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, I am here. I’m Keith McDaniel and I’m with Von Carpenter.
Mr. Carpenter: Von Carpenter.
Mr. McDaniel: Spell that for me, Mr. Carpenter.
Mr. Carpenter: Sir?
Mr. McDaniel: Spell that for me, please?
Mr. Carpenter: V-O-N C-A-R-P-E-N-T-E-R.
Mr. McDaniel: Tell me about – and how old are you, Mr. Carpenter?
Mr. Carpenter: I’m eighty-five years old.
Mr. McDaniel: Eighty-five. And today is January the 29th, 2010.
Mr. Carpenter: 2010.
Mr. McDaniel: Let’s just start at the beginning. How did you end up in Oak Ridge?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, I graduated from high school and I came to work with J. A. Jones as a storeroom clerk. Then I hired in with Union Carbide; that was in April of ’45, I mean, ’44. I hired in with Carbide, Union Carbide, in August, and they sent me and a bunch of other people to Bound Brook, New Jersey. And we went up there to train for the K-25 plant, but we got up there and all we did was load boxcars. And so the boys got together and said they’d come back. So I came back with them. And in October the 19th, I hired back in with Union Carbide. And my days from there is – I worked on the first cell –
Mr. McDaniel: Just a minute, let’s go – let me ask you a question. Let’s go back for just a second.
Mr. Carpenter: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: So this was 1944, right?
Mr. Carpenter: 1944.
Mr. McDaniel: 1944. Where did you – where did you come to Oak Ridge from? What were you doing before?
Mr. Carpenter: Oh, I came from North Carolina, a little town right out of Spruce Pine, North Carolina; it’s north of Asheville.
Mr. McDaniel: What were you doing there?
Mr. Carpenter: I was in high school. And then I didn’t get to go to service because I had polio when I had – when I was 15 years old. So they wouldn’t take me. So that’s the reason I ended up in Oak Ridge. And I started in Oak Ridge –
Mr. McDaniel: How did you hear about Oak Ridge? How did that come about?
Mr. Carpenter: One of the neighbors that hired me, he worked at the – he was the manager of a cafeteria here, and he told me about it and wanted to know if I wanted to come.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh.
Mr. Carpenter: So I did. And we came here in – I guess it was in – well, I’ve already told you that. I hired in April, then I hired in with Union Carbide again. And so we went to Bound Brook, New Jersey, then we came back and I hired back in with Union Carbide in October the 19th.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: So the days from there, I worked on the first cell that had uranium in it. And the – well, I guess –
Mr. McDaniel: So you came back in the fall of ’44, back from New Jersey.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, fall of ’44, October the 19th.
Mr. McDaniel: And they were still building K-25 then?
Mr. Carpenter: They were still – yeah, they were still building the K-25. They had the east side just about completed and they just had the steel up on the west side. Then when we worked on the first cell with the uranium in it, so then they had the test bomb out in Arizona [Editor’s note: the Trinity nuclear test was conducted in New Mexico, July 16, 1945] in – I think that was in April or May or sometime or another of ’44.
Mr. McDaniel: ’45 wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: ’45, yeah. So then the west side, it just seemed like it went up overnight. So my days started in 310-3 and started the first cells. So we started putting on buildings and cells up the U. It was only a startup crew and we went from one building to another starting it up. Then I went through 25, then I went to 27, and we started up 27.
Mr. McDaniel: When was that? What year was that?
Mr. Carpenter: It was in late ’46– I mean, yeah, ’46 or ’47.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, ’47, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Sometime or other right in that period of time.
Mr. McDaniel: So they were building – as soon as they got through with K-25 they started building K-27?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: So we – I worked all the buildings in K-25.
Mr. McDaniel: So what did you do? What did you do there?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, I was on a startup crew.
Mr. McDaniel: And what does that mean? What specifically did you do?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, the – what we’d do, we’d check the building out, check the cells and all the motors and everything, then we’d start the motors, make sure everything was going, then we’d start putting on cascade.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question about starting up. What did you put through it to start it up? Did you put anything through it? I mean, before you had – did you have anything that went through the cell before you put the uranium hexafluoride in there to test it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they conditioned in the cell. They put whatever the condition material they had, they conditioned it, got it ready, and then we’d evacuate all the air out of it. Then we would go from one building to another. And we went through all of 25 into – over in the west side we’d start putting cells on over there. Then after we got them on, I was transferred to 27.
Mr. McDaniel: Before you go to 27, let me ask you a couple of questions about K-25. Your startup crew, how many men would there be on that startup crew?
Mr. Carpenter: There would be from three to six or seven.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, and how long would it take you to, you know, to get a cell ready to go?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, back then, we had big old wheels to – we operate the valves by manual controls.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, by manual control, big old wheels.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. Then they – we went – they had manual control all the way through 27. And, of course, now, in the 312 section they had valley arm pumps which took care of the air and all the impurities. So 3067 was the top of the cascade. And so after that we went to 27 and did the same thing, startup, check everything out, make sure it’s operating right, put the cells on streams. Then after we got 27 on, I was transferred to 31. I went through 31 on the startup crew, and I went through the whole building starting it up, checking the same thing out. Of course, they had motor operated valves, so you didn’t have to manual put it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. I bet by this time you were probably running the place, weren’t you?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. So –
Mr. McDaniel: So you went from 25 to 27 and then from 27 to 31.
Mr. Carpenter: 31 yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: What do – do you remember about what year that was that you went to 31?
Mr. Carpenter: In 1950, I believe it was.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, okay.
Mr. Carpenter: Because I think it was in ’51 I was transferred to 33.
Mr. McDaniel: 33, uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: And I was – we did the same thing over there, and I started the first cell with motors over there. And those big old motors, it made – the ventilation system chattered; we thought it was coming down on us.
Mr. McDaniel: Really? Let me ask you a question. Now, when you would get a cell checked out and ready to go, they wouldn’t wait until you got the whole building done; they’d just add that to the cascade, wouldn’t they, each time as you go along?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they – of course, they had bypass lines into – you could bypass a building or bypass a cell or whatever it is – whatever you want to do.
Mr. McDaniel: In case something needed maintenance or something needed to be fixed or a cell quit working, yes.
Mr. Carpenter: And so I went through 31, did the same thing, then I was transferred to 33. And at 33 we started the same thing, and I started the first cell in 33, the big motors. So I think they had something like thirty-three hundred horsepower. And so they did make a lot of racket.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Hold on just a second. Yeah, if you need a drink, go ahead and take a drink. I’m going to stop this real quick anyway.
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, needs to –
[break in recording]
Mr. McDaniel: The process material, what was it they used?
Mr. Carpenter: U-235.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, but to set it up it was a – was it a low level?
Mr. Carpenter: Low level.
Terry Carpenter: Right, never did get high.
Mr. Carpenter: Then, of course, they had the –
Terry Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: – A stream and the B stream. And the A stream went upstream, and the B went down.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: So they took it off at 311-1 or they took the high assay off at 3067. So is it classified to tell you how much – what the percentage was?
Mr. McDaniel: Well, no, no, no.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we took it off about ninety-four to ninety-six percent.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: Of course, when we put it in, it didn’t have nothing.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, exactly.
Mr. Carpenter: It was pure uranium.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: And so I was set up in supervision in 1974 and I worked in 33 as a Shift Superintendent, I mean, the Foreman.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: So after that I was set up to the Assistant Area Foreman for that building.
Mr. McDaniel: Which building was this, 33?
Mr. Carpenter: 33.
Mr. McDaniel: 33.
Mr. Carpenter: So after 33 – let’s see, we went through all of that. Then in August the 7th we was in – anyway, we – they decided to shut it down.
Mr. McDaniel: What year was that?
Mr. Carpenter: It was in –
Mr. McDaniel: ’85?
Mr. Carpenter: ’87.
Mr. McDaniel: ’87?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, I mean, wait a minute.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: ’85.
Mr. McDaniel: ’85.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, so they decided to shut it down. What had been shut down already by then? Had anything?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, they started shutting it down and taking all the uranium out.
Mr. McDaniel: All that they could.
Mr. Carpenter: Purging the cells, getting ready for shutdown. So they shut down 29, 27, 31, and all the cells except one in 33. That was 9027, Cell 2. So they gave me the pleasure of shutting it down.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. So I shut it down and then –
Mr. McDaniel: And went home, didn’t you?
Mr. Carpenter: Then they sent me over to the old K-25 building. What we did over there then, we could cut out material and just did everything they wanted to do. If they needed an instrument somewhere, so we cut that out. And my wife worked in Central Control Room for about nine years. So she’s worked in there, and what she did was monitor the line recorders, so if we had an end leakage out in the building anywhere, we had line recorders that she could call up and say, “You’ve got a leak in your building.”
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: And you’d start looking for it.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Carpenter: And you could isolate the cells and had valves for each cell for – run into the line recorder and you could get the impurities or whatever into it and looking for it.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question. So let’s go ahead and take this to the end then we’re going to come back in a minute and talk about some other things. So you turned off the last cell in 33 in 1985.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, and then you went back over to K-25 to start cannibalizing the –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we –
[mechanical noise]
Mr. McDaniel: Stop, stop.
[break in recording]
Mr. McDaniel: All right, so then you went to K-25 to cannibalize those tools.
Mr. Carpenter: Now we just reroofed the building and just did maintenance on it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. And so when did you retire?
Mr. Carpenter: I retired in ’86.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: January the 27th.
Mr. McDaniel: So once you turned off 33, it was less than a year later when you retired, wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, well, good.
Mr. Carpenter: I turned it off in August of ’45 –
Mr. McDaniel: ’85.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, and then I retired in ’86.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So let’s go back to when you first started working. You said you came right out of high school.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And so what was – when you first started working, what was your job title?
Mr. Carpenter: My job title was a Chemical Operator.
Mr. McDaniel: Chemical Operator. Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: Then –
Mr. McDaniel: Did they put you through any kind of special training for that?
Mr. Carpenter: Then I went to – they sent me up to a Crew Leader, and I had – the biggest building in K-25 had three cells.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Carpenter: 3093, it had three cells. That’s when I was sent up to Crew Leader.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Carpenter: I had one – I had two Operators, and they did readings on the cells and working the line recorder and whatever they had to do, and I was just piddling.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question, did they send you to any kind of training when you first started or –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, yeah, they did training.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it here in Oak Ridge or did they send you off someplace else?
Mr. Carpenter: What, sir?
Mr. McDaniel: Was it here in Oak Ridge or was it –
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, it was on the job – it’s on-the-job training.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Everything we done was on the job.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: So we –
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you this, when – what do you remember over your career at the K-25 site, not just the U but all the buildings, what would be the biggest – what was the biggest problem you ran into?
Mr. Carpenter: The biggest problem? Well, I guess when we had a fire or something or other like that. I was on the Emergency Squad for several years and we reported to wherever they had emergency. We would report to it. And we had a little fire engine and we – I drove it for a while, I mean, when we went to a fire. So –
Mr. McDaniel: So was that the K-25 Fire Department?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they had a Fire Department there, but we just – backup.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Backup, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, okay, and I guess you were kind of on that because you knew all the ins-and-outs of all the equipment, didn’t you? You kind of –
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: – you probably knew it as well as anybody, didn’t you?
Mr. Carpenter: I just – it’s – the old saying is I was just a handyman all around.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, sometimes that’s the best guy to have.
Mr. Carpenter: I just worked at – I just worked everywhere they wanted me to.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. That’s what I tell people sometimes. I say, “You know, I’m like the coat of many colors, all patchwork.” So, you know, I do a little bit of everything. Well, that’s good. So you had – did you ever have any of the motors or anything like that explode or catch fire?
Mr. Carpenter: We’ve had motors to catch fire, yes. And we’ve had blades off of the compressors they would – what the old saying is, they would just shell like a corn.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Carpenter: And they would cut a line and we would crawl in there and clean it out. I’ve crawled up twenty feet in a cell – I mean, in a pipe.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Carpenter: And clean it out, and most of the time I just – of course, we had on a respirator or a gas mask. When we crawled in the cell, we had gas masks. Then we had – we wore a respirator around our neck all the time, in case we had an in-leakage or out-leakage, we would be able to put it on and get out of it or take care of it or whatever it is.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, right. Did doing any of that kind of work – were you afraid of it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Mr. McDaniel: Or were you just cautious?
Mr. Carpenter: Just cautious of it, really.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: They would have things to back you up. If you crawled in the pipe, they would tie a rope around you or where if you get stuck or anything, they can pull you out.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. Hm. Well, those are those big pipes. You know, how big around were those pipes?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, in K-25 they was twelve to fourteen inches, I believe.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: Then in 31 they was a little bit bigger.
Mr. McDaniel: 33 had those big huge ones, didn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: They had huge –
Mr. McDaniel: The big diffusers. I mean, they were the huge thirteen foot diffusers, weren’t they?
Mr. Carpenter: They was thirty-six inches or more.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, the pipes. [addressing Terry Carpenter] Well, what else did I need to talk to him about, ask him about?
Terry Carpenter: Okay, go into process in K-25 and like the process is, because he’s not even in on the enrichment part of it.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Terry Carpenter: You know, like, because most of that stuff, the matter is no more than fifteen percent, but you also had the good stuff which was – which building was the good stuff in, Daddy? The building that you put the ninety-three in?
Mr. Carpenter: The –
Terry Carpenter: The ninety-three percent material.
Mr. Carpenter: 3067.
Terry Carpenter: That’s 3067?
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: While he ran 25, most of the process was low level.
Mr. Carpenter: We sent the –
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Terry Carpenter: Especially after the early ’50s because it’s all –
Mr. McDaniel: It’s all nuclear power.
Mr. Carpenter: They shut down –
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, power.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: I think they shut down 25 in ’69. I believe that’s the year.
Terry Carpenter: And I think the last year that the – they sent the ninety-three up to Portsmouth was in ’66 or ’68.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: That’s when that process building was shut down.
Mr. McDaniel: But which building was – which building did the high enrichment?
Mr. Carpenter: The high –
Mr. McDaniel: The high enrichment.
Mr. Carpenter: We had 3067; it run in the nineties. So I don’t think we ever had a hundred percent.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Well, tell me some stories. Tell me some stories about things that you remember happening with people or events or anything like that.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we used to play tricks on the guards. We’d throw something and they had the guard stations around, like in 311-1, I remember a little instant. We – they had what they call coolant pits. And we would do something or another and then we’d duck down in that. And they just – they’d jump up and down, grab their guns. But things like that just little old things.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Nothing serious, just mischief.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we had fun, we had – we worked hard and we had fun.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. Now, did you meet your wife once you came to Oak Ridge?
Mr. Carpenter: I met my wife in Oak Ridge. I was in 310-3 and she came down walking through the building and I said, “That’s it.” So that was in ’45. And we got married in ’47. So and then we – she worked in the Control Room all that time.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: And she quit – that’s when she had that.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Now, that happened a lot. So where were you living when you were single?
Mr. Carpenter: In Oak Ridge. Single?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, before you got married, where were you living?
Mr. Carpenter: I was living in Canton Hall.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Terry Carpenter: In Happy Valley.
Mr. Carpenter: In one of them halls down there in the Townsite. And she was living in another one.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, where did you live when you got married?
Mr. Carpenter: Same place.
Mr. McDaniel: Same place.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, did you ever live in Happy Valley?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Tell me about that.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, I lived in what they called a dormitory in Happy Valley, and then, of course, I moved to – from there up to Townsite.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: We used to ride a cattle car back and forth to work from the bus station up here in Oak Ridge. We’d catch that, ride it down at nighttime or shift changing time.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you catch the bus at the central bus terminal?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, and they were going all 24 hours a day, weren’t they?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, Y-12, going to X-10, K-25. I rode that for – well, when we got married, I didn’t have a car. So I bought a car right after we got married. And my wife is from Alabama and so we got married in ’47 – I mean, ’47.
Mr. McDaniel: ’47.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. And –
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, you did. California Avenue, remember. You lived on California when you first got married.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, we lived at 99 California Avenue. We was able to get a house before we got married. So I had a house.
Mr. McDaniel: What was that, was that an “A” house or a –
Mr. Carpenter: It was a little “B” house – a little “A”, I mean, “C” – “A” house. And I mean, it was – it’s four apartments.
Terry Carpenter: Four-plex.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see, I see. It was an “E”, wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, an “E”? Yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: 99 California Avenue.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Well, how much did you pay rent? Do you remember?
Mr. Carpenter: Huhn?
Mr. McDaniel: How much rent did you pay, do you remember?
Mr. Carpenter: I think it was thirty-five dollars a month and, of course, they furnished everything, heat and all that.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. What – if you don’t mind telling me, how much were you making back then?
Mr. Carpenter: Oh, probably I think it was eighty-five cents an hour. Then it went to a dollar an hour, then from that it just increased it.
Terry Carpenter: Go back to the Happy Valley.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Terry Carpenter: And go deep, because his family moved up from Alabama and all that area in there they had a lot of different stuff in there like the theater and all this stuff.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about Happy Valley. So when you first moved to Oak Ridge you were living in Happy Valley, right?
Mr. Carpenter: Happy Valley, in the dormitory.
Mr. McDaniel: And so tell me a little bit about Happy Valley. What was it like living there? I mean, from my understanding it was, you know, twelve, fifteen thousand people; you had everything that you wanted right there.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, my wife’s dad and brother came up here and she came up here from Huntsville, Alabama to live with her mother and dad. Of course, I didn’t know her at that time.
Mr. McDaniel: Now was she living in Happy Valley, too?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, she lived in Happy Valley.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, so she came up to her dad – her mom and dad came up to work.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, they had a little hut or whatever you call it.
Mr. McDaniel: Hutment.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: So what was it like there? I mean, you know, you’d work hard all day and then you’d go – did you have cafeteria, movie theater, recreation?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, we had most everything, entertainment, all that stuff. Had the theater, had – no, I don’t know whether they had a theater or not; they had a recreation room. I think we had to go to Townsite to have – to the movie.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, you may have, but I think it was a – the Playtime Theater was in Happy Valley, wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: What – some people told me that Happy Valley since it was mainly a construction community –
Mr. Carpenter: It was a construction company.
Mr. McDaniel: – it was kind of rough.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it rough? Were there lots of fights?
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Terry Carpenter: A lot of drunks and a lot of fights, right, Daddy?
Mr. Carpenter: It was.
Mr. McDaniel: It was? So – but you lived there for – until they finished the U, right?
Mr. Carpenter: No, I didn’t live there – they – well, now, I may have because –
Mr. McDaniel: Because when they finished the U, not long after that they got rid of Happy Valley, they –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, when I hired in with Union Carbide, I left Happy Valley.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: And I went up Townsite. And I – first dormitory I stayed in was – I think it was 44, it was – the name of it was 44. Then the – I stayed there until I went to – moved up to town site to Canton Hall and I stayed there until I got married.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, what was it – tell me some more stories about working out at the K-25 site out there. What were some of your managers like, and some of the head honchos? Did you ever have any run-ins with any of them?
Mr. Carpenter: Have any trouble?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, did you ever have any trouble? They’re probably most of them gone by now; you can talk about them.
Mr. Carpenter: Everywhere you go you have a little trouble.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, give me an example.
Mr. Carpenter: I never did have trouble as far as supervision. They was all nice to me. I laughed at one little incident. When I was in K-25 they had a little club; they called it the Flea Club. And so the – it got so bad that you had to have a relationship with another person to join it.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Carpenter: So Mr. Bob Winkle when – they fired my supervisor over it, and so they asked Bob Winkle if he knew anything about it. He said, “Why hell, yes, I started it.” So you remember Bob Winkle?
Mr. McDaniel: That sounds like something Bob Winkle would say, doesn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: He said, “Hell, yes, I knew it.”
[laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: My goodness.
Mr. Carpenter: He said, “I started it.”
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, goodness.
Mr. Carpenter: But we just had – it was so many things different. You had to have fun wherever you work. And we – it wasn’t boring. So –
Mr. McDaniel: Was it hard work though? I mean, physically challenging?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, it was pretty hard work. You had to – especially in 25 you had those big motors – I mean, valves, that you had to isolate a cell. So you had four block valves and the bypass valve. So you had to do that, open up the recycle valve for the bottom of the cell.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you – were you ever involved in like the barrier, like, you know, working with it or replacing it or anything like that? The barrier material?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we had a lot of failures. I forget what year it was. We had – they had a – laid out a lot of barrier material and it was – had fault to it. So they had – it ruptured and we had to change a cell, change the converter out. So we’ve taken converters out one at a time or whatever it is, whatever it needs to be.
Mr. McDaniel: Did the system ever – did you ever run into the system getting clogged up a lot? I mean, as far as – I may not understand it correctly.
Terry Carpenter: The barrier clogging up.
Mr. McDaniel: The barrier material clogging up?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, yes, you had to put ClF3 or whatever the conditioning gas, you had to put that in there to open it up.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, my understanding is working out at the – especially the U, was pretty hot.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, it stayed hot because of all the motors and all the energy created.
Mr. Carpenter: All we had is just fans in the basement. We had a basement, cell floor, and the utility, I mean, the pipe gallery, where all the pipes was, then we had the operating floor. And all you had in – is just natural, I mean, airflow.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Terry Carpenter: It was very hot.
Mr. Carpenter: Then, of course, you go into 29. I worked in 29; it was a vacation relief, all the work I’ve done in 29. So I did that when I was in 31, vacation relief, 31, 33, I mean, 29, then 413, I’d worked some in it. Of course, they all was those different buildings down there.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Let me ask you a question, when they, you know, when they turned it off in ’85, when you turned it off in ’85, how did it come about that you were the person to do that? Did somebody choose you?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they was – I reckon because I was the first one that started the motor in 33, and they gave me the pleasure of shutting it down. And I’ve got the picture of it, also the piston grip. I got the piston grip, when I retired, they gave that to me.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? My goodness. Okay.
[break in recording]
Terry Carpenter: – that only he’d know.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Terry Carpenter: Want to talk about, and some of the stuff that’s, like the Happy Valley, I thought it went out in ’47. When did they shut Happy Valley down, ’45?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, I don’t know, it was not long after they finished the U.
Terry Carpenter: Okay, so they finished the U in –
Mr. McDaniel: ’45, well –
Terry Carpenter: – ’46, I guess.
Mr. McDaniel: – ’46, yeah.
Terry Carpenter: Because he was on the first cascade when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and he was – that was in K-25. And that’s not – well, it’s down there – it’s in part – K-25 is not the U. Right?
Mr. McDaniel: No, it is the U.
Terry Carpenter: It is the U? Okay. Well, then you had the first part of the north side – I guess, is it north side or south side of the U? Daddy? That the first cell was put in?
Mr. McDaniel: East or west?
Terry Carpenter: East or west, rather? Was it on the east side of the U?
Mr. Carpenter: On the east side.
Terry Carpenter: Okay. All right.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: Then the process going – you know?
Mr. Carpenter: On the east side we had the – it’s 310-3.
Terry Carpenter: Okay, all right, but Daddy, in the processes, when you started the cells up, you put the depleted through there, okay?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Terry Carpenter: And you started enriching, all right? And the barrier material would clog up all the time.
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Terry Carpenter: And that’s a fact.
Mr. Carpenter: – we had to keep it a certain temperature.
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, and the temperature was, like in 31, 33, the top of the cells, was like a hundred and twenty degrees.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: You know, you could prime them on some of that stuff. And it’s like – it had like a 128 db sound level and then when they shut it off it’s like the spookiest thing you ever seen in your life. I’ve been there. It’s the spookiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. You know?
Mr. Carpenter: In –
Terry Carpenter: You ready?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: In K-25 we had 816; it’s a coolant system. Then of course in 31 and 33 we had Freon®; that’s what the cooling system was.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Now let me ask you a question, when – the flow of the uranium – the uranium hexafluoride – okay, did it go from K-25 to another building?
Mr. Carpenter: It went from K-25 to 27, from 27 to 29, from 29 to 31, 31 to 33.
Mr. McDaniel: Now did it enrich it a little bit more in each building?
Mr. Carpenter: Each cell enriched it a little bit more.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, so by the time it got to 33, was finished at 33, it was pretty high level enrichment, wasn’t it?
Terry Carpenter: No, it was only fifteen percent max in 33.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh really?
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, because the other went to the other buildings. The ninety-three went to the other buildings, right, Daddy?
Mr. Carpenter: Right.
Terry Carpenter: 33, most you put out of 33 was fifteen percent?
Mr. Carpenter: Well what you put out of 33 would probably be –
Terry Carpenter: Seven to fifteen.
Mr. Carpenter: Huhn?
Terry Carpenter: Seven to fifteen percent assay, right?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Terry Carpenter: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: Then, of course, twenty – 31 enrich it a little but more and then 29 enrich it a little more.
Mr. McDaniel: What was it when it left K-25? About what enrichment was it before it went to 27?
Mr. Carpenter: What was I doing?
Mr. McDaniel: No, what was the level of enrichment when it left the U?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, of course, now, you started off in 27, 29, 31. Well, it just increased up the cascade.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: And they took it off at 3067.
Mr. McDaniel: Now let me ask you a question, back before they built 27 and K-25 was doing a little bit of enrichment to send to Y-12 before the bomb was dropped –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they sent it –
Mr. McDaniel: They sent it to Y12.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, when we – yeah, they send all of it to Y-12.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, when the calutrons were still operating.
Mr. Carpenter: But when they dropped the bomb out there in the desert, the test bomb, it was right after the – they didn’t have the west side of the K-25 building built.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Terry Carpenter: I got something. Daddy, when they started – when they processed the initial processing of K-25 or – yeah, K-25 – they brought it up to ninety-three percent in that first set of cascades, right?
Mr. Carpenter: It –
Terry Carpenter: They super enriched it basically, okay?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, you put in just plain uranium.
Terry Carpenter: Natural uranium and you bring it up – each cell brought it up a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And then, but the process material that you sent to Y-12 was – what kind of assay was that?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, it was eighty-five to ninety-four or ninety-three.
Terry Carpenter: The first cascade. So when you’re saying first cascades coming out of K-25 were super enriched, and then like 33, 31, most it brought up was fifteen percent assay.
Mr. Carpenter: It just – bigger volume and more of it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, exactly.
Terry Carpenter: So your initial cascades in 31 – I mean in K-25, they brought it up to bomb-grade material, right?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Terry Carpenter: So the calutrons over at Y-12, electromagnetic process, are the calutrons, and that’s where the enrichment continued.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, they – right.
Terry Carpenter: That’s where we purified it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Yeah, I believe so. All right, anything else you want me to talk to him about?
Terry Carpenter: Okay, you can talk to him about the early years of Oak Ridge.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, that’s true.
Terry Carpenter: And, you know, all the parties and all the stuff, those things that they had right after the ’45 droppage.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Terry Carpenter: You know, that type of thing.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, tell me about that. Tell me about where were you when the bomb was dropped and how did you hear about it?
Mr. Carpenter: When the bomb was dropped?
Mr. McDaniel: Yes.
Mr. Carpenter: Out – when the test bomb?
Mr. McDaniel: No, when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
Mr. Carpenter: It was in – when was it, August?
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Terry Carpenter: August 7th.
Mr. Carpenter: 7th?
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: But where were you at?
Mr. McDaniel: Where were you and what were you doing and how did you hear about it?
Terry Carpenter: Were you working?
Mr. Carpenter: I was in the 31, I guess.
Terry Carpenter: No, you weren’t in 31.
Mr. Carpenter: 31 or –
Terry Carpenter: Not 31, you were in K-25. Which cascade area were you in working at that time?
Mr. Carpenter: When they first –
Terry Carpenter: When the bomb dropped, ’45.
Mr. McDaniel: Be sure – let me, here, let me do it, let me do it. Be sure and look at me. Where were you working when you found out that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?
Mr. Carpenter: I’m not sure where I was working.
Mr. McDaniel: But you were working when you heard about it?
Mr. Carpenter: I was working, yeah, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. Okay, and can you remember anything about that? When everybody heard about it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, the old saying is, what you see here, leave here. Then course we didn’t know what we was making, we had no idea what we were making until they dropped the test bomb. And then when they dropped the – they bombed, that’s when World War I – I mean II comes together.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: So I was working in, let’s see that was – what year was that?
Mr. McDaniel: ’45.
Mr. Carpenter: ’45, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: So tell me about when you went home that day. You know, what was your neighbors doing? Did y’all, you know, celebrate, or –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they was happy. I was too, because we made – we worked on the bomb that caused the World War II to come to the end. And I guess, I mean, I remember in Grove Center we had a big party that celebrated the bomb drop.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Grove Center.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But what was living in Oak Ridge like over the years?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, it was �� you didn’t have to worry about your utilities; they furnished that. Course it was – you had movies, recreation and softball, basketball, stuff like that.
Mr. McDaniel: There was a lot to do, wasn’t there? There was a lot to do, a lot of things to do.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, well, they kept you busy. You can find something to do.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, how did you feel about when they decided to open the gates? What did you think about that?
Mr. Carpenter: About what?
Mr. McDaniel: When they decided to open the gates?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we had a big movie star come in, I was standing right by – right on the sidewalk there in Townsite, the Oak – the theater right in front of the theater and they had – what was it – the S & S Café. I was standing right in front of it when they come by. And everybody was – I guess they was happy.
Mr. McDaniel: Now did – how did you feel? I mean did you want them to open the gates or not want them to open the gates? A lot of people had a lot of opinions.
Mr. Carpenter: It didn’t bother me at all.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: I just – when they opened the gate, we could have company come in without trying to get passport and get a badge for them or anything. So you could have visitors come in then.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: So they didn’t have to go through all that stuff.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. And you had your kids? How many kids?
Mr. Carpenter: Got two.
Mr. McDaniel: Two? Two children. So you had them and they grew up in Oak Ridge. What’d you –
Terry Carpenter: No.
Mr. McDaniel: You didn’t?
Terry Carpenter: Clinton.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, Clinton? When did you leave Oak Ridge?
Mr. Carpenter: When I left Oak Ridge?
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: I left Oak Ridge in ’51, came to Clinton and bought a house.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: I gave thirteen thousand dollars for my little house.
Mr. McDaniel: In ’51?
Mr. Carpenter: I got it on FHA and I thought I never would pay for it.
Mr. McDaniel: How much was your payment?
Mr. Carpenter: Oh, I was probably making a dollar and something an hour.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. How much was your house payment?
Mr. Carpenter: Thirty-nine dollars a month.
Mr. McDaniel: My mom and dad, when they bought their house that they live in now in ’56, it was ten thousand dollars. And I remember in ’86 her making the last house payment, it was like, including the taxes and everything, it was like eighty-one dollars or something like that for her last house payment. So –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, with my wife and I both working, we paid it off before the end of time, I mean.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Carpenter: So, we didn’t have to pay on it too long.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure, sure. Well, is there anything that I’ve not asked you about that you want to talk about? Any stories or anything that you want to talk about?
Mr. Carpenter: Not really. I just – we just – everyday life. Whatever comes up, we took care of it or it took care of us, one.
Terry Carpenter: Daddy, tell him about – one thing about – remember talking about when you ran – when you were in 31, 33 when you – like three-and-a-half operators ran both buildings?
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Terry Carpenter: And you were doing all that and then you ran the building while – what did you used to do as a supervisor? What all did you do? Just walk around and listen, for what?
Mr. Carpenter: In – I guess it was in ’50 – ’49 or ’50 or something like that. Well, it was after we started 33, we had an operator in each control room and had what they called three-and-a-half operators working both buildings. We worked both buildings.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: So –
Mr. McDaniel: What did you do? I mean, what did you do?
Mr. Carpenter: Everything that – anything that comes up. If they had an emergency, you go take care of it. If you had to take a cell off, you go take care of it. You had to take one on, put it on. You put it on. So we just did everything that they needed to be done.
Terry Carpenter: How’d you used to get in the area? Did you ride a bicycle?
Mr. Carpenter: Rode a bicycle most all the time.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you work shift work?
Mr. Carpenter: I worked shift work until, I guess it was, oh, in about ’80 – ’75. Then I went on days.
Mr. McDaniel: All right. I think –
Terry Carpenter: Is that a pretty good one?
Mr. McDaniel: I think that’s pretty good. We got over an hour, so –
[end of recording]

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ORAL HISTORY OF VON CARPENTER
Interviewed and Filmed by Keith McDaniel
With Terry Carpenter
January 29, 2010
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, I am here. I’m Keith McDaniel and I’m with Von Carpenter.
Mr. Carpenter: Von Carpenter.
Mr. McDaniel: Spell that for me, Mr. Carpenter.
Mr. Carpenter: Sir?
Mr. McDaniel: Spell that for me, please?
Mr. Carpenter: V-O-N C-A-R-P-E-N-T-E-R.
Mr. McDaniel: Tell me about – and how old are you, Mr. Carpenter?
Mr. Carpenter: I’m eighty-five years old.
Mr. McDaniel: Eighty-five. And today is January the 29th, 2010.
Mr. Carpenter: 2010.
Mr. McDaniel: Let’s just start at the beginning. How did you end up in Oak Ridge?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, I graduated from high school and I came to work with J. A. Jones as a storeroom clerk. Then I hired in with Union Carbide; that was in April of ’45, I mean, ’44. I hired in with Carbide, Union Carbide, in August, and they sent me and a bunch of other people to Bound Brook, New Jersey. And we went up there to train for the K-25 plant, but we got up there and all we did was load boxcars. And so the boys got together and said they’d come back. So I came back with them. And in October the 19th, I hired back in with Union Carbide. And my days from there is – I worked on the first cell –
Mr. McDaniel: Just a minute, let’s go – let me ask you a question. Let’s go back for just a second.
Mr. Carpenter: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: So this was 1944, right?
Mr. Carpenter: 1944.
Mr. McDaniel: 1944. Where did you – where did you come to Oak Ridge from? What were you doing before?
Mr. Carpenter: Oh, I came from North Carolina, a little town right out of Spruce Pine, North Carolina; it’s north of Asheville.
Mr. McDaniel: What were you doing there?
Mr. Carpenter: I was in high school. And then I didn’t get to go to service because I had polio when I had – when I was 15 years old. So they wouldn’t take me. So that’s the reason I ended up in Oak Ridge. And I started in Oak Ridge –
Mr. McDaniel: How did you hear about Oak Ridge? How did that come about?
Mr. Carpenter: One of the neighbors that hired me, he worked at the – he was the manager of a cafeteria here, and he told me about it and wanted to know if I wanted to come.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh.
Mr. Carpenter: So I did. And we came here in – I guess it was in – well, I’ve already told you that. I hired in April, then I hired in with Union Carbide again. And so we went to Bound Brook, New Jersey, then we came back and I hired back in with Union Carbide in October the 19th.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: So the days from there, I worked on the first cell that had uranium in it. And the – well, I guess –
Mr. McDaniel: So you came back in the fall of ’44, back from New Jersey.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, fall of ’44, October the 19th.
Mr. McDaniel: And they were still building K-25 then?
Mr. Carpenter: They were still – yeah, they were still building the K-25. They had the east side just about completed and they just had the steel up on the west side. Then when we worked on the first cell with the uranium in it, so then they had the test bomb out in Arizona [Editor’s note: the Trinity nuclear test was conducted in New Mexico, July 16, 1945] in – I think that was in April or May or sometime or another of ’44.
Mr. McDaniel: ’45 wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: ’45, yeah. So then the west side, it just seemed like it went up overnight. So my days started in 310-3 and started the first cells. So we started putting on buildings and cells up the U. It was only a startup crew and we went from one building to another starting it up. Then I went through 25, then I went to 27, and we started up 27.
Mr. McDaniel: When was that? What year was that?
Mr. Carpenter: It was in late ’46– I mean, yeah, ’46 or ’47.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, ’47, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Sometime or other right in that period of time.
Mr. McDaniel: So they were building – as soon as they got through with K-25 they started building K-27?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: So we – I worked all the buildings in K-25.
Mr. McDaniel: So what did you do? What did you do there?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, I was on a startup crew.
Mr. McDaniel: And what does that mean? What specifically did you do?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, the – what we’d do, we’d check the building out, check the cells and all the motors and everything, then we’d start the motors, make sure everything was going, then we’d start putting on cascade.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question about starting up. What did you put through it to start it up? Did you put anything through it? I mean, before you had – did you have anything that went through the cell before you put the uranium hexafluoride in there to test it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they conditioned in the cell. They put whatever the condition material they had, they conditioned it, got it ready, and then we’d evacuate all the air out of it. Then we would go from one building to another. And we went through all of 25 into – over in the west side we’d start putting cells on over there. Then after we got them on, I was transferred to 27.
Mr. McDaniel: Before you go to 27, let me ask you a couple of questions about K-25. Your startup crew, how many men would there be on that startup crew?
Mr. Carpenter: There would be from three to six or seven.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, and how long would it take you to, you know, to get a cell ready to go?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, back then, we had big old wheels to – we operate the valves by manual controls.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, by manual control, big old wheels.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. Then they – we went – they had manual control all the way through 27. And, of course, now, in the 312 section they had valley arm pumps which took care of the air and all the impurities. So 3067 was the top of the cascade. And so after that we went to 27 and did the same thing, startup, check everything out, make sure it’s operating right, put the cells on streams. Then after we got 27 on, I was transferred to 31. I went through 31 on the startup crew, and I went through the whole building starting it up, checking the same thing out. Of course, they had motor operated valves, so you didn’t have to manual put it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. I bet by this time you were probably running the place, weren’t you?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. So –
Mr. McDaniel: So you went from 25 to 27 and then from 27 to 31.
Mr. Carpenter: 31 yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: What do – do you remember about what year that was that you went to 31?
Mr. Carpenter: In 1950, I believe it was.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, okay.
Mr. Carpenter: Because I think it was in ’51 I was transferred to 33.
Mr. McDaniel: 33, uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: And I was – we did the same thing over there, and I started the first cell with motors over there. And those big old motors, it made – the ventilation system chattered; we thought it was coming down on us.
Mr. McDaniel: Really? Let me ask you a question. Now, when you would get a cell checked out and ready to go, they wouldn’t wait until you got the whole building done; they’d just add that to the cascade, wouldn’t they, each time as you go along?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they – of course, they had bypass lines into – you could bypass a building or bypass a cell or whatever it is – whatever you want to do.
Mr. McDaniel: In case something needed maintenance or something needed to be fixed or a cell quit working, yes.
Mr. Carpenter: And so I went through 31, did the same thing, then I was transferred to 33. And at 33 we started the same thing, and I started the first cell in 33, the big motors. So I think they had something like thirty-three hundred horsepower. And so they did make a lot of racket.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Hold on just a second. Yeah, if you need a drink, go ahead and take a drink. I’m going to stop this real quick anyway.
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, needs to –
[break in recording]
Mr. McDaniel: The process material, what was it they used?
Mr. Carpenter: U-235.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, but to set it up it was a – was it a low level?
Mr. Carpenter: Low level.
Terry Carpenter: Right, never did get high.
Mr. Carpenter: Then, of course, they had the –
Terry Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: – A stream and the B stream. And the A stream went upstream, and the B went down.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: So they took it off at 311-1 or they took the high assay off at 3067. So is it classified to tell you how much – what the percentage was?
Mr. McDaniel: Well, no, no, no.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we took it off about ninety-four to ninety-six percent.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: Of course, when we put it in, it didn’t have nothing.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, exactly.
Mr. Carpenter: It was pure uranium.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: And so I was set up in supervision in 1974 and I worked in 33 as a Shift Superintendent, I mean, the Foreman.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: So after that I was set up to the Assistant Area Foreman for that building.
Mr. McDaniel: Which building was this, 33?
Mr. Carpenter: 33.
Mr. McDaniel: 33.
Mr. Carpenter: So after 33 – let’s see, we went through all of that. Then in August the 7th we was in – anyway, we – they decided to shut it down.
Mr. McDaniel: What year was that?
Mr. Carpenter: It was in –
Mr. McDaniel: ’85?
Mr. Carpenter: ’87.
Mr. McDaniel: ’87?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, I mean, wait a minute.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: ’85.
Mr. McDaniel: ’85.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, so they decided to shut it down. What had been shut down already by then? Had anything?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, they started shutting it down and taking all the uranium out.
Mr. McDaniel: All that they could.
Mr. Carpenter: Purging the cells, getting ready for shutdown. So they shut down 29, 27, 31, and all the cells except one in 33. That was 9027, Cell 2. So they gave me the pleasure of shutting it down.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. So I shut it down and then –
Mr. McDaniel: And went home, didn’t you?
Mr. Carpenter: Then they sent me over to the old K-25 building. What we did over there then, we could cut out material and just did everything they wanted to do. If they needed an instrument somewhere, so we cut that out. And my wife worked in Central Control Room for about nine years. So she’s worked in there, and what she did was monitor the line recorders, so if we had an end leakage out in the building anywhere, we had line recorders that she could call up and say, “You’ve got a leak in your building.”
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: And you’d start looking for it.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Carpenter: And you could isolate the cells and had valves for each cell for – run into the line recorder and you could get the impurities or whatever into it and looking for it.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question. So let’s go ahead and take this to the end then we’re going to come back in a minute and talk about some other things. So you turned off the last cell in 33 in 1985.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, and then you went back over to K-25 to start cannibalizing the –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we –
[mechanical noise]
Mr. McDaniel: Stop, stop.
[break in recording]
Mr. McDaniel: All right, so then you went to K-25 to cannibalize those tools.
Mr. Carpenter: Now we just reroofed the building and just did maintenance on it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. And so when did you retire?
Mr. Carpenter: I retired in ’86.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: January the 27th.
Mr. McDaniel: So once you turned off 33, it was less than a year later when you retired, wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, well, good.
Mr. Carpenter: I turned it off in August of ’45 –
Mr. McDaniel: ’85.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, and then I retired in ’86.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So let’s go back to when you first started working. You said you came right out of high school.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And so what was – when you first started working, what was your job title?
Mr. Carpenter: My job title was a Chemical Operator.
Mr. McDaniel: Chemical Operator. Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: Then –
Mr. McDaniel: Did they put you through any kind of special training for that?
Mr. Carpenter: Then I went to – they sent me up to a Crew Leader, and I had – the biggest building in K-25 had three cells.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mr. Carpenter: 3093, it had three cells. That’s when I was sent up to Crew Leader.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Carpenter: I had one – I had two Operators, and they did readings on the cells and working the line recorder and whatever they had to do, and I was just piddling.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question, did they send you to any kind of training when you first started or –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, yeah, they did training.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it here in Oak Ridge or did they send you off someplace else?
Mr. Carpenter: What, sir?
Mr. McDaniel: Was it here in Oak Ridge or was it –
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, it was on the job – it’s on-the-job training.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Everything we done was on the job.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: So we –
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you this, when – what do you remember over your career at the K-25 site, not just the U but all the buildings, what would be the biggest – what was the biggest problem you ran into?
Mr. Carpenter: The biggest problem? Well, I guess when we had a fire or something or other like that. I was on the Emergency Squad for several years and we reported to wherever they had emergency. We would report to it. And we had a little fire engine and we – I drove it for a while, I mean, when we went to a fire. So –
Mr. McDaniel: So was that the K-25 Fire Department?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they had a Fire Department there, but we just – backup.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Backup, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, okay, and I guess you were kind of on that because you knew all the ins-and-outs of all the equipment, didn’t you? You kind of –
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: – you probably knew it as well as anybody, didn’t you?
Mr. Carpenter: I just – it’s – the old saying is I was just a handyman all around.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, sometimes that’s the best guy to have.
Mr. Carpenter: I just worked at – I just worked everywhere they wanted me to.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. That’s what I tell people sometimes. I say, “You know, I’m like the coat of many colors, all patchwork.” So, you know, I do a little bit of everything. Well, that’s good. So you had – did you ever have any of the motors or anything like that explode or catch fire?
Mr. Carpenter: We’ve had motors to catch fire, yes. And we’ve had blades off of the compressors they would – what the old saying is, they would just shell like a corn.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mr. Carpenter: And they would cut a line and we would crawl in there and clean it out. I’ve crawled up twenty feet in a cell – I mean, in a pipe.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Carpenter: And clean it out, and most of the time I just – of course, we had on a respirator or a gas mask. When we crawled in the cell, we had gas masks. Then we had – we wore a respirator around our neck all the time, in case we had an in-leakage or out-leakage, we would be able to put it on and get out of it or take care of it or whatever it is.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, right. Did doing any of that kind of work – were you afraid of it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Mr. McDaniel: Or were you just cautious?
Mr. Carpenter: Just cautious of it, really.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: They would have things to back you up. If you crawled in the pipe, they would tie a rope around you or where if you get stuck or anything, they can pull you out.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. Hm. Well, those are those big pipes. You know, how big around were those pipes?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, in K-25 they was twelve to fourteen inches, I believe.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: Then in 31 they was a little bit bigger.
Mr. McDaniel: 33 had those big huge ones, didn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: They had huge –
Mr. McDaniel: The big diffusers. I mean, they were the huge thirteen foot diffusers, weren’t they?
Mr. Carpenter: They was thirty-six inches or more.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, the pipes. [addressing Terry Carpenter] Well, what else did I need to talk to him about, ask him about?
Terry Carpenter: Okay, go into process in K-25 and like the process is, because he’s not even in on the enrichment part of it.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Terry Carpenter: You know, like, because most of that stuff, the matter is no more than fifteen percent, but you also had the good stuff which was – which building was the good stuff in, Daddy? The building that you put the ninety-three in?
Mr. Carpenter: The –
Terry Carpenter: The ninety-three percent material.
Mr. Carpenter: 3067.
Terry Carpenter: That’s 3067?
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: While he ran 25, most of the process was low level.
Mr. Carpenter: We sent the –
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Terry Carpenter: Especially after the early ’50s because it’s all –
Mr. McDaniel: It’s all nuclear power.
Mr. Carpenter: They shut down –
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, power.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: I think they shut down 25 in ’69. I believe that’s the year.
Terry Carpenter: And I think the last year that the – they sent the ninety-three up to Portsmouth was in ’66 or ’68.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: That’s when that process building was shut down.
Mr. McDaniel: But which building was – which building did the high enrichment?
Mr. Carpenter: The high –
Mr. McDaniel: The high enrichment.
Mr. Carpenter: We had 3067; it run in the nineties. So I don’t think we ever had a hundred percent.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Well, tell me some stories. Tell me some stories about things that you remember happening with people or events or anything like that.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we used to play tricks on the guards. We’d throw something and they had the guard stations around, like in 311-1, I remember a little instant. We – they had what they call coolant pits. And we would do something or another and then we’d duck down in that. And they just – they’d jump up and down, grab their guns. But things like that just little old things.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Nothing serious, just mischief.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we had fun, we had – we worked hard and we had fun.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. Now, did you meet your wife once you came to Oak Ridge?
Mr. Carpenter: I met my wife in Oak Ridge. I was in 310-3 and she came down walking through the building and I said, “That’s it.” So that was in ’45. And we got married in ’47. So and then we – she worked in the Control Room all that time.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: And she quit – that’s when she had that.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Now, that happened a lot. So where were you living when you were single?
Mr. Carpenter: In Oak Ridge. Single?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, before you got married, where were you living?
Mr. Carpenter: I was living in Canton Hall.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Terry Carpenter: In Happy Valley.
Mr. Carpenter: In one of them halls down there in the Townsite. And she was living in another one.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, where did you live when you got married?
Mr. Carpenter: Same place.
Mr. McDaniel: Same place.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, did you ever live in Happy Valley?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Tell me about that.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, I lived in what they called a dormitory in Happy Valley, and then, of course, I moved to – from there up to Townsite.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: We used to ride a cattle car back and forth to work from the bus station up here in Oak Ridge. We’d catch that, ride it down at nighttime or shift changing time.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you catch the bus at the central bus terminal?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, and they were going all 24 hours a day, weren’t they?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, Y-12, going to X-10, K-25. I rode that for – well, when we got married, I didn’t have a car. So I bought a car right after we got married. And my wife is from Alabama and so we got married in ’47 – I mean, ’47.
Mr. McDaniel: ’47.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah. And –
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, you did. California Avenue, remember. You lived on California when you first got married.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, we lived at 99 California Avenue. We was able to get a house before we got married. So I had a house.
Mr. McDaniel: What was that, was that an “A” house or a –
Mr. Carpenter: It was a little “B” house – a little “A”, I mean, “C” – “A” house. And I mean, it was – it’s four apartments.
Terry Carpenter: Four-plex.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see, I see. It was an “E”, wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, an “E”? Yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: 99 California Avenue.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Well, how much did you pay rent? Do you remember?
Mr. Carpenter: Huhn?
Mr. McDaniel: How much rent did you pay, do you remember?
Mr. Carpenter: I think it was thirty-five dollars a month and, of course, they furnished everything, heat and all that.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. What – if you don’t mind telling me, how much were you making back then?
Mr. Carpenter: Oh, probably I think it was eighty-five cents an hour. Then it went to a dollar an hour, then from that it just increased it.
Terry Carpenter: Go back to the Happy Valley.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Terry Carpenter: And go deep, because his family moved up from Alabama and all that area in there they had a lot of different stuff in there like the theater and all this stuff.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about Happy Valley. So when you first moved to Oak Ridge you were living in Happy Valley, right?
Mr. Carpenter: Happy Valley, in the dormitory.
Mr. McDaniel: And so tell me a little bit about Happy Valley. What was it like living there? I mean, from my understanding it was, you know, twelve, fifteen thousand people; you had everything that you wanted right there.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, my wife’s dad and brother came up here and she came up here from Huntsville, Alabama to live with her mother and dad. Of course, I didn’t know her at that time.
Mr. McDaniel: Now was she living in Happy Valley, too?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, she lived in Happy Valley.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, so she came up to her dad – her mom and dad came up to work.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, they had a little hut or whatever you call it.
Mr. McDaniel: Hutment.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: So what was it like there? I mean, you know, you’d work hard all day and then you’d go – did you have cafeteria, movie theater, recreation?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, we had most everything, entertainment, all that stuff. Had the theater, had – no, I don’t know whether they had a theater or not; they had a recreation room. I think we had to go to Townsite to have – to the movie.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, you may have, but I think it was a – the Playtime Theater was in Happy Valley, wasn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: What – some people told me that Happy Valley since it was mainly a construction community –
Mr. Carpenter: It was a construction company.
Mr. McDaniel: – it was kind of rough.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it rough? Were there lots of fights?
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Terry Carpenter: A lot of drunks and a lot of fights, right, Daddy?
Mr. Carpenter: It was.
Mr. McDaniel: It was? So – but you lived there for – until they finished the U, right?
Mr. Carpenter: No, I didn’t live there – they – well, now, I may have because –
Mr. McDaniel: Because when they finished the U, not long after that they got rid of Happy Valley, they –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, when I hired in with Union Carbide, I left Happy Valley.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: And I went up Townsite. And I – first dormitory I stayed in was – I think it was 44, it was – the name of it was 44. Then the – I stayed there until I went to – moved up to town site to Canton Hall and I stayed there until I got married.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, what was it – tell me some more stories about working out at the K-25 site out there. What were some of your managers like, and some of the head honchos? Did you ever have any run-ins with any of them?
Mr. Carpenter: Have any trouble?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, did you ever have any trouble? They’re probably most of them gone by now; you can talk about them.
Mr. Carpenter: Everywhere you go you have a little trouble.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, give me an example.
Mr. Carpenter: I never did have trouble as far as supervision. They was all nice to me. I laughed at one little incident. When I was in K-25 they had a little club; they called it the Flea Club. And so the – it got so bad that you had to have a relationship with another person to join it.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Carpenter: So Mr. Bob Winkle when – they fired my supervisor over it, and so they asked Bob Winkle if he knew anything about it. He said, “Why hell, yes, I started it.” So you remember Bob Winkle?
Mr. McDaniel: That sounds like something Bob Winkle would say, doesn’t it?
Mr. Carpenter: He said, “Hell, yes, I knew it.”
[laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: My goodness.
Mr. Carpenter: He said, “I started it.”
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, goodness.
Mr. Carpenter: But we just had – it was so many things different. You had to have fun wherever you work. And we – it wasn’t boring. So –
Mr. McDaniel: Was it hard work though? I mean, physically challenging?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, it was pretty hard work. You had to – especially in 25 you had those big motors – I mean, valves, that you had to isolate a cell. So you had four block valves and the bypass valve. So you had to do that, open up the recycle valve for the bottom of the cell.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you – were you ever involved in like the barrier, like, you know, working with it or replacing it or anything like that? The barrier material?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we had a lot of failures. I forget what year it was. We had – they had a – laid out a lot of barrier material and it was – had fault to it. So they had – it ruptured and we had to change a cell, change the converter out. So we’ve taken converters out one at a time or whatever it is, whatever it needs to be.
Mr. McDaniel: Did the system ever – did you ever run into the system getting clogged up a lot? I mean, as far as – I may not understand it correctly.
Terry Carpenter: The barrier clogging up.
Mr. McDaniel: The barrier material clogging up?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, yes, you had to put ClF3 or whatever the conditioning gas, you had to put that in there to open it up.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, my understanding is working out at the – especially the U, was pretty hot.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: I mean, it stayed hot because of all the motors and all the energy created.
Mr. Carpenter: All we had is just fans in the basement. We had a basement, cell floor, and the utility, I mean, the pipe gallery, where all the pipes was, then we had the operating floor. And all you had in – is just natural, I mean, airflow.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Terry Carpenter: It was very hot.
Mr. Carpenter: Then, of course, you go into 29. I worked in 29; it was a vacation relief, all the work I’ve done in 29. So I did that when I was in 31, vacation relief, 31, 33, I mean, 29, then 413, I’d worked some in it. Of course, they all was those different buildings down there.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Let me ask you a question, when they, you know, when they turned it off in ’85, when you turned it off in ’85, how did it come about that you were the person to do that? Did somebody choose you?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they was – I reckon because I was the first one that started the motor in 33, and they gave me the pleasure of shutting it down. And I’ve got the picture of it, also the piston grip. I got the piston grip, when I retired, they gave that to me.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? My goodness. Okay.
[break in recording]
Terry Carpenter: – that only he’d know.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Terry Carpenter: Want to talk about, and some of the stuff that’s, like the Happy Valley, I thought it went out in ’47. When did they shut Happy Valley down, ’45?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, I don’t know, it was not long after they finished the U.
Terry Carpenter: Okay, so they finished the U in –
Mr. McDaniel: ’45, well –
Terry Carpenter: – ’46, I guess.
Mr. McDaniel: – ’46, yeah.
Terry Carpenter: Because he was on the first cascade when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and he was – that was in K-25. And that’s not – well, it’s down there – it’s in part – K-25 is not the U. Right?
Mr. McDaniel: No, it is the U.
Terry Carpenter: It is the U? Okay. Well, then you had the first part of the north side – I guess, is it north side or south side of the U? Daddy? That the first cell was put in?
Mr. McDaniel: East or west?
Terry Carpenter: East or west, rather? Was it on the east side of the U?
Mr. Carpenter: On the east side.
Terry Carpenter: Okay. All right.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: Then the process going – you know?
Mr. Carpenter: On the east side we had the – it’s 310-3.
Terry Carpenter: Okay, all right, but Daddy, in the processes, when you started the cells up, you put the depleted through there, okay?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Terry Carpenter: And you started enriching, all right? And the barrier material would clog up all the time.
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Terry Carpenter: And that’s a fact.
Mr. Carpenter: – we had to keep it a certain temperature.
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, and the temperature was, like in 31, 33, the top of the cells, was like a hundred and twenty degrees.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: You know, you could prime them on some of that stuff. And it’s like – it had like a 128 db sound level and then when they shut it off it’s like the spookiest thing you ever seen in your life. I’ve been there. It’s the spookiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. You know?
Mr. Carpenter: In –
Terry Carpenter: You ready?
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah.
Mr. Carpenter: In K-25 we had 816; it’s a coolant system. Then of course in 31 and 33 we had Freon®; that’s what the cooling system was.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Now let me ask you a question, when – the flow of the uranium – the uranium hexafluoride – okay, did it go from K-25 to another building?
Mr. Carpenter: It went from K-25 to 27, from 27 to 29, from 29 to 31, 31 to 33.
Mr. McDaniel: Now did it enrich it a little bit more in each building?
Mr. Carpenter: Each cell enriched it a little bit more.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, so by the time it got to 33, was finished at 33, it was pretty high level enrichment, wasn’t it?
Terry Carpenter: No, it was only fifteen percent max in 33.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh really?
Terry Carpenter: Yeah, because the other went to the other buildings. The ninety-three went to the other buildings, right, Daddy?
Mr. Carpenter: Right.
Terry Carpenter: 33, most you put out of 33 was fifteen percent?
Mr. Carpenter: Well what you put out of 33 would probably be –
Terry Carpenter: Seven to fifteen.
Mr. Carpenter: Huhn?
Terry Carpenter: Seven to fifteen percent assay, right?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Terry Carpenter: Okay.
Mr. Carpenter: Then, of course, twenty – 31 enrich it a little but more and then 29 enrich it a little more.
Mr. McDaniel: What was it when it left K-25? About what enrichment was it before it went to 27?
Mr. Carpenter: What was I doing?
Mr. McDaniel: No, what was the level of enrichment when it left the U?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, of course, now, you started off in 27, 29, 31. Well, it just increased up the cascade.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: And they took it off at 3067.
Mr. McDaniel: Now let me ask you a question, back before they built 27 and K-25 was doing a little bit of enrichment to send to Y-12 before the bomb was dropped –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they sent it –
Mr. McDaniel: They sent it to Y12.
Mr. Carpenter: Well, when we – yeah, they send all of it to Y-12.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, when the calutrons were still operating.
Mr. Carpenter: But when they dropped the bomb out there in the desert, the test bomb, it was right after the – they didn’t have the west side of the K-25 building built.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Terry Carpenter: I got something. Daddy, when they started – when they processed the initial processing of K-25 or – yeah, K-25 – they brought it up to ninety-three percent in that first set of cascades, right?
Mr. Carpenter: It –
Terry Carpenter: They super enriched it basically, okay?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, you put in just plain uranium.
Terry Carpenter: Natural uranium and you bring it up – each cell brought it up a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And then, but the process material that you sent to Y-12 was – what kind of assay was that?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, it was eighty-five to ninety-four or ninety-three.
Terry Carpenter: The first cascade. So when you’re saying first cascades coming out of K-25 were super enriched, and then like 33, 31, most it brought up was fifteen percent assay.
Mr. Carpenter: It just – bigger volume and more of it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, exactly.
Terry Carpenter: So your initial cascades in 31 – I mean in K-25, they brought it up to bomb-grade material, right?
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah.
Terry Carpenter: So the calutrons over at Y-12, electromagnetic process, are the calutrons, and that’s where the enrichment continued.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, they – right.
Terry Carpenter: That’s where we purified it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. Yeah, I believe so. All right, anything else you want me to talk to him about?
Terry Carpenter: Okay, you can talk to him about the early years of Oak Ridge.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, that’s true.
Terry Carpenter: And, you know, all the parties and all the stuff, those things that they had right after the ’45 droppage.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right.
Terry Carpenter: You know, that type of thing.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, tell me about that. Tell me about where were you when the bomb was dropped and how did you hear about it?
Mr. Carpenter: When the bomb was dropped?
Mr. McDaniel: Yes.
Mr. Carpenter: Out – when the test bomb?
Mr. McDaniel: No, when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
Mr. Carpenter: It was in – when was it, August?
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Terry Carpenter: August 7th.
Mr. Carpenter: 7th?
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Terry Carpenter: But where were you at?
Mr. McDaniel: Where were you and what were you doing and how did you hear about it?
Terry Carpenter: Were you working?
Mr. Carpenter: I was in the 31, I guess.
Terry Carpenter: No, you weren’t in 31.
Mr. Carpenter: 31 or –
Terry Carpenter: Not 31, you were in K-25. Which cascade area were you in working at that time?
Mr. Carpenter: When they first –
Terry Carpenter: When the bomb dropped, ’45.
Mr. McDaniel: Be sure – let me, here, let me do it, let me do it. Be sure and look at me. Where were you working when you found out that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?
Mr. Carpenter: I’m not sure where I was working.
Mr. McDaniel: But you were working when you heard about it?
Mr. Carpenter: I was working, yeah, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. Okay, and can you remember anything about that? When everybody heard about it?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, the old saying is, what you see here, leave here. Then course we didn’t know what we was making, we had no idea what we were making until they dropped the test bomb. And then when they dropped the – they bombed, that’s when World War I – I mean II comes together.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mr. Carpenter: So I was working in, let’s see that was – what year was that?
Mr. McDaniel: ’45.
Mr. Carpenter: ’45, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: So tell me about when you went home that day. You know, what was your neighbors doing? Did y’all, you know, celebrate, or –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, they was happy. I was too, because we made – we worked on the bomb that caused the World War II to come to the end. And I guess, I mean, I remember in Grove Center we had a big party that celebrated the bomb drop.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn, right, right.
Mr. Carpenter: Grove Center.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But what was living in Oak Ridge like over the years?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, it was �� you didn’t have to worry about your utilities; they furnished that. Course it was – you had movies, recreation and softball, basketball, stuff like that.
Mr. McDaniel: There was a lot to do, wasn’t there? There was a lot to do, a lot of things to do.
Mr. Carpenter: Yeah, well, they kept you busy. You can find something to do.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, how did you feel about when they decided to open the gates? What did you think about that?
Mr. Carpenter: About what?
Mr. McDaniel: When they decided to open the gates?
Mr. Carpenter: Well, we had a big movie star come in, I was standing right by – right on the sidewalk there in Townsite, the Oak – the theater right in front of the theater and they had – what was it – the S & S Café. I was standing right in front of it when they come by. And everybody was – I guess they was happy.
Mr. McDaniel: Now did – how did you feel? I mean did you want them to open the gates or not want them to open the gates? A lot of people had a lot of opinions.
Mr. Carpenter: It didn’t bother me at all.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: I just – when they opened the gate, we could have company come in without trying to get passport and get a badge for them or anything. So you could have visitors come in then.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: So they didn’t have to go through all that stuff.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. And you had your kids? How many kids?
Mr. Carpenter: Got two.
Mr. McDaniel: Two? Two children. So you had them and they grew up in Oak Ridge. What’d you –
Terry Carpenter: No.
Mr. McDaniel: You didn’t?
Terry Carpenter: Clinton.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, Clinton? When did you leave Oak Ridge?
Mr. Carpenter: When I left Oak Ridge?
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: I left Oak Ridge in ’51, came to Clinton and bought a house.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: I gave thirteen thousand dollars for my little house.
Mr. McDaniel: In ’51?
Mr. Carpenter: I got it on FHA and I thought I never would pay for it.
Mr. McDaniel: How much was your payment?
Mr. Carpenter: Oh, I was probably making a dollar and something an hour.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn. How much was your house payment?
Mr. Carpenter: Thirty-nine dollars a month.
Mr. McDaniel: My mom and dad, when they bought their house that they live in now in ’56, it was ten thousand dollars. And I remember in ’86 her making the last house payment, it was like, including the taxes and everything, it was like eighty-one dollars or something like that for her last house payment. So –
Mr. Carpenter: Well, with my wife and I both working, we paid it off before the end of time, I mean.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mr. Carpenter: So, we didn’t have to pay on it too long.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure, sure. Well, is there anything that I’ve not asked you about that you want to talk about? Any stories or anything that you want to talk about?
Mr. Carpenter: Not really. I just – we just – everyday life. Whatever comes up, we took care of it or it took care of us, one.
Terry Carpenter: Daddy, tell him about – one thing about – remember talking about when you ran – when you were in 31, 33 when you – like three-and-a-half operators ran both buildings?
Mr. Carpenter: Well –
Terry Carpenter: And you were doing all that and then you ran the building while – what did you used to do as a supervisor? What all did you do? Just walk around and listen, for what?
Mr. Carpenter: In – I guess it was in ’50 – ’49 or ’50 or something like that. Well, it was after we started 33, we had an operator in each control room and had what they called three-and-a-half operators working both buildings. We worked both buildings.
Mr. McDaniel: Uh-huhn.
Mr. Carpenter: So –
Mr. McDaniel: What did you do? I mean, what did you do?
Mr. Carpenter: Everything that – anything that comes up. If they had an emergency, you go take care of it. If you had to take a cell off, you go take care of it. You had to take one on, put it on. You put it on. So we just did everything that they needed to be done.
Terry Carpenter: How’d you used to get in the area? Did you ride a bicycle?
Mr. Carpenter: Rode a bicycle most all the time.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you work shift work?
Mr. Carpenter: I worked shift work until, I guess it was, oh, in about ’80 – ’75. Then I went on days.
Mr. McDaniel: All right. I think –
Terry Carpenter: Is that a pretty good one?
Mr. McDaniel: I think that’s pretty good. We got over an hour, so –
[end of recording]